Where the Green Grass Grows
by Woodford Argyle
Summary: Draco finds comfort in the strangest place. Druna. Story maybe become more graphic with added chapters.
1. Chapter 1

The high white sun brightened the day, but did little to warm it. Trees crowded around the edge of the forbidden forest. Trees that were penny colored and half naked. The dead leaf mat below her feet turned the floor brilliant shades of gold and red from the first fall of leaves from elms and oaks. She stood just outside of the open green house. In pale blue Mary Janes with a double strap, white stockings that stopped just two inches above her knee. A dark plaid skirt with a modest hem that hung just below her knee and clinched at her waist with a long zipper and single button. Her blouse was tucked in and exaggerated narrowness of her waist and sloped from a feminine bust line. Full length sleeves and long flaxen hair that washed down the curve of her low back. A long Ravenclaw scarf was lazily wrapped around her neck.

"Viverrium, " she said again, between clenched teeth. A wand that was held before her and tapped with each frustrated syllable. Purple smoke came and nothing more "Vi-verium," again smoke. A dramatic flick of her wrist. "Viver-rum." and from her wand came solid satin ribbon in carmine red. Luna scowl turned into a welcoming smile, silent praise. She turned to look at the class. To find her Professor that must be as delighted as she, but they were dispersing. Walking up the slope of the lawn. A few stragglers and she turned back to the green house with half open soulless windows. Voices around her faded, as the students migrated toward the school.

Luna's eyes turned back on the empty green house. Shriveled dead vines held to the claim they had made in life and turned half the building into an umber unfeeling thing. Then she looked down to the ribbon, winding in the grass like a delicate and vivid snake. Her accomplishment, her hard work, faded with her will to let it survive. It was absorbed into nothing, from which it came. Luna wandered away. Away the class, away from Hogwarts to that green house. It was better to be alone, people were kinder when she could not hear or see them.

The door was ajar and she walked into to see the white sun pouring through open ceiling windows. It was cold in here too. Fingers drug along the counter top. Most of the plants had died during the first frost, but a few flourish in the environment. A thing spidery thing in a clay pot reached for her as she waked by, just a small tendril that moved to curl around fingers and she stopped to watch it and then continued her path.

She pushed open the heavy swing back door and the room will filled with a gray dark. She heard the sounds of heavy but slow breath. Luna a fearless and bold thing did not raise her wand. Instead she searched the room. She let her eyes adjust to low light. The windows were neglected and heavy dusty film filtered out the light, but she saw him. The angular and slight build of Draco Malfoy. Just a gleam of shoking light hair and dark robes. Half leaned back on a metal table and head dipped down, he hadn't noticed her. His lips moved as if he were speaking, but she no words could be heard. Hard lines set on his face as he was moving through emotions that didn't dare share outside of shadow.

Luna walked over to him only when she was in few feet of him did he hear her. He turned to her.

"What are you doing here?" Those words were colder than air around them. Luna replied a soft smile.

"Class is over, " she replied frankly. The girl turned her head, length of blond hair falling off her shoulder. A breath of cool air. "I like in here. I hunt for fomax. They come in to get out of. ."

"Do you really believe in all that?" that was accusation in his words, but he wasn't banishing her. He wasn't sending her away.

"You have to believe in something. " she told him looking up the dark tin ceiling. "Sometimes it is better to believe in something that might not be there, then to " he cut her off again.

"No wonder they call yo Loony Lovegood."

"Do you what they call you?" He looked confused and found he wasn't sure how to reply. "Depends on who you talk to. Death Eater, Traitor, Prince, Pureblood, Coward, Savior. "she said without prompting. Without invitation. Without expecting him to care. Draco seemed careless, it was a characteristic of pride for the Malfoys. She smiled again. The blond outsider stood beside her, and he looked at her with cool blue eyes. Draco was different this year, she could feel it. It was like a cold and quiet brewing storm. Luna did not make a spectacle of him, she was kinder than that. "I don't believe any of it."

"Whatever," he was quick to snap up his pride.

Luna didn't reply she reached to out to him to take his hand. To brush her thumb over the row of his knuckles so he didn't have to say anything either. For a moment he allowed. He allowed long enough for her know he allowed it and then drew his hand back. He righted himself, she could the glint of the white of his eyes. He was taller than her. He turned and walked away.

"Draco?"

"What," when he turned around his wand was held low but aimed towards her.

"Thank you, "

In her fingers twirl around the gort wand. She knew the boy wasn't social, he almost as much of an outcast as she was. It made some strange and unfamiliar kinship between them.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't think about the greenhouse for a long time. Not with everything else going on. It wasn't until two weeks after he'd come home to manor did he think of her. It was only because she had been thrust in to conversation. A conversation he wish he never heard. Only then did he think of the green house and of her misplaced gratitude. Of the darkness between them and dead things around them. He denied their kinship as outsiders, as undesirables. All he needed was the mark on his arm, that represented his brotherhood, they were his promised land. It made him royalty.

Outside of the winding tower of the Lovegood residence Luna was collecting visgaburn on a knoll. The thin hair like mushrooms lined between her fingers. Around her they cast a weak violent blood orange glow. On her knees she pinched them off and tucked in a between her fingers. Their glow began to die the moment she took them from the soil. Her fingers had gone numb over an hour ago, still she worked into the night. Her wand tucked behind her ear and hair that was barely tamed into a long braid that hung around her neck and nearly sweeping over the lifeless grass. That was a distinctive pop that drew her attention, a figure on the knoll. A black and empty silhouette. Luna's heart skipped,a sharp inhale, she attempted to scramble to her feet, but he was on her. She fought but was was over powered. When she tried to scream a cold hand clamped over her mouth. Heels dug into soft loam. They laid in the grass and she battered him with her arms. Blows that he took. Blows that did not move him. Her fingers combed the long blades of grass and she found nothing, her wand gone.

"Shhhut up, quiet." a hiss.

The distinct and dangerous feeling of the end wand tip pressed under her chin. Her eyes held tightly closed and she began to shut down. Luna wouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry in the face of death. She stopped fighting.

"Good," spoken in panted breath. That tone was sore and reluctant. The hand moved from her mouth to press her down hard on the uncomfortable frozen ground. A forearm braced against her chest, limiting her breath. A time passed when nothing was said or done. So she opened her eyes, but all she could see was darkness in that hood. So many wizards had gone missing, so many dead. Her heart pounded and those seconds seemed to last an eternity. Luna reached up. The assailant did not stop her. She pushed back the hood and in the crimson glow she was his pointed features.

"Draco?"

Before he could answer there were the sounds of wood tearing, a door being broke off its hinges. Voices, the high strung Bellatrix and marryment of men in her chorus. Luna struggled and kicked once more. Arching her back and looking passed the knoll to her house as the windows lit up one by one. Shadows moved in the yellow blazing frame. They reminded her of demons from muggle mythology with pointed hats and movements that fluttered in and out of view like desperate birds. Luna screamed and tried to claw free from the boy. The mushrooms lose along with her wand. Dirt under broken finger nails. He held to her her, he fought to keep her back. Draco Apparated and took her with him


	3. Chapter 3

Luna found herself with her back down on a splintering hard wood floor and him breathing heavy on her. When she kicked and threw her arms on him he surrendered. Scrambling away from her. Then he was gone just as quickly as he had appeared. Then was alone. Hard wood beneath her and the room was tar black. There was no definition in that darkness, no understanding, just panic. No wand. She was in a house, or at least what used to be one. It was half hallow and half in ruin. She stood and began to feel towards her escape. The debris around caused her move most deftly. She stumble three times before she found a crack of light. THe light turned out be to be a door. Once out she realized that she recognized this place, it was the Shrieking Shack. It was passed curfew and Hogwarts was a walk away. Luna walked and with each step her fear diminished. She walked with disregard to the cold and with clear avoidance of the patrols. It was an hour later she got to Hogwarts. Inside the was sternly lectured about the dangers of wandering the halls after dark. No one had noticed that Luna had left for the holidays. Nor did they notice the wetness on the cuffs of her pants and the dirt under nails. It was easy to over look Luna. She didn't tell them either. She took her secret to dorm and stripped down, curled under her blankets and tried not to think about her father. In the morning she poured over the prophet in an usual state of frenzy. She sent sent an owl to her father. The note did not say anything about the boy either. She kept his secret.

Two days later she received an owl from her father. With a casual letter written in shaken hand writing. He was simply grateful. Two weeks later Draco was back at Hogswarts. He and his entourage of muscle. He avoided her. He didn't look at her and frequently left the great hall when she entered. Once she'd stepped in front of him and he spat an insult at her. Luna wished him a good day.

* * *

Luna appeared in a half mussed state of sleep, but only in her physical sate. Mentally she was wide awake. It was late and she had come her on pure intuition. Using her replaced wand to sweep up lengths of stamineous hair that did not sit neatly into a high strung bun. With lengths spilling off her shoulders and over her face. She was in her pajamas, a long gauzy gown. Lips still full and pink from hard sleep, eyes with wide dark pupils adjusted to the low light. All the confirmation she needed was in the emergence of a the arched stone door way to the Room of Requirement. For what she required could not be produced out nothingness, could not be supplied by a conjuring of a magical imagination or born from the transfiguration of one object to something new and unfamiliar to its original shape. Tonight the entrance was provoked by the presents of a student of almost seventeen, an outsider and royalty in his own right. She'd passed this hall late in the evenings on a number of occasions, but without resolve. Her intentions were more pure that that of Ron, Hermoine or Harry. That is why she didn't tell them. It wasn't an investigation into his faults or suspicion to his character.

The room opened because it could provide her desire without denying him his own; without jeopardizing either. The flat of her hand on the rough green splintered oak and steel door. A push. The room innately changed to accommodate her despite the other's prior reservation. There is a subtle and low warmth that took its place, a small semblance in all things. To the careless observer nothing had spread on the door and she pushed it open. A low objective groan. Bare feet on cold stone, something she hadn't noticed.

The boy hadn't noticed her at first. Draco was bent and half devoured by the old umber cabinet. A suit that was black and tailored. That distinquished him from the other students in his six year. The white shock of his blonde hair was had artfully fallen out of place. He looked beautifully dangerous. Between teeth near undecipherable spells were cast, a white shower of sparks followed.

"Come on, " a desperate tone. The door clicked as it closed behind her he looked up. His head banging on the low shelf. A hand rubbed the sore spot and he rested back on his heels. He searched the room and found her. A moment of absolute disbelief. "What?" it was at first a startled question. That quickly turned into a cold threat. "How the hell did you get into here?"

Luna with a remarkable presence of serenity smiled to him. She didn't understand any of what what happening before her. None of the work he had been doing on the cabinet or the work he'd already done registered. It was appeared to her to be nothing more than large umber thing with perhaps some unknown potential.

"I've come here for you. " it was informative and matter of fact without accent, emphasis or intonation. As if it were a simple and obvious truth. "Of course, " Lips split into a compassionate, but empty smile.

"What?" befuddlement. That answer had been too straight forward for him to accept.

"I was looking for you, " she explained the science he already knew, because malicious intent had never occurred to her. "Is this what you've been doing? "

The door behind buckled down into the wall and then bleed into the stone. Until it and the stone became inseparable and indistinguishable. She surveyed him and recognized all things in their actuality to the best of her knowledge. Without the absurdity or obliquity of assumption or experience. Luna forgave Draco as if she had never noticed his surprise. Luna's finger tips, painted in opalescent coral and faint gray pointed stars knotted in a long twill of her hair. She closed the distance between them.

"It's ...It's " he slammed the door of the cabinet and stood red faced and breathing hard. "Get out of here, " his wand was drawn and pointed low. Stepping back he distanced himself from her.

Luna waited for him to be done speaking. She did not try to push back into conversation, she did not appear offended or defensive. Even when he drew his wand she did not waver. The ivory gort wand remained tangled in that mess of thick hair. Instead she leaned irresponsibly on the cabinet and it held her weight. A glance over the room and all the things it was filled with. What did he require with all this clutter? Or was it just this cabinet?

"You don't have to tell me if you don't wan to, but I wanted say thank you, "The polished veneer of the cabinet was explored with fingertips without a double nature. That languid and lazy stance said something about the trust she invested in him with out charge, without expectation. Even as he became near frantic and threatened her her demeanor remained unchanged. She saw something tempestuous in him and watched it, almost passively, come to fruit. "I tried to before," her eyes fell and she remembered how he avoided her in the halls.

"You wont tell anyone, anything you saw, I will kill you. " his wand was stretched out. His lips contorted into a frown. The typically bold and dogmatic Sytherin had become only recognizable on his corporeal distinction. "leave, now " His panic did not allow him to hear her clearly.

"Thank you, for bringing me to Hogsmeade." she said it anyway. Then set herself into motion walking towards him.

"Just go, " he begun to tremble. A half step back. She was gaining ground. Draco wished she never been kind to him. That she wouldn't expect his kindness ever again.

"I..." he didn't know what to say as she drew him closer

"I am leaving, " she spoke through her smile and it could be heard in her words. Her hand slipped over his lowering his wand. Now she stood so close almost feel that anxious heart beat. Feel that tremendous heat from eeked from him. He froze and gave her permission with out such intention. A slow breath and she took in the sanctuary of this place and wished he could to. She brushed her cheek on his, and felt the hard edge of his jaw and roughness of a neglected day proper shaving. "I wont tell, " she whispered to him.

Everything in Draco told him to step back. To distance himself, but he too found himself in a sharing a small sanctuary. She descended to stand grounded on her feet.

"Sleep always helped my Mum. The answer might come to you while you sleep, maybe that's just it. " her tone was again aimless. She looked back to the wall where the door had once been and found it again waiting for her. Luna let go of his hand and turned to leave. To leave him with cabinet. Knowing she had given her thanks.


	4. Chapter 4

Crabbe and Goyle now stood outside of the Room of Requirement as guard. They were unkind on their best days to Luna, so she spared herself the humiliation by simply avoiding confrontation. One week turned into two weeks, two weeks into a month passed without change. It was still bitter cold outside and all she had seen was the ghost of Draco passing in the halls. He looked hallow and used. He'd become unpredictable and explosive. Yet, he was the boy she wanted, above all. Luna wasn't sure when that epiphany had happen. It had come to her slowly and then suddenly, with permission. Instead waiting she waited in the great hall and between classes for him. She did not need to be validated or recognized by him. What she had wanted she was sure of, but it consumed her free time.

What was about to bring them together was something unexpected. For the third time that week her books had been _borrowed_ and taken down in the dungeons. Though Snape was not particularly kind he, for reasons unknown to her, was moved to make her life easier. When she became the victim of other student's outlet of angst and cruelty he'd often leave her borrowed items on his desk in the class room. Though he'd never invited her in or told her that he'd left them there Luna had once caught leaving them there. The girl gave him the respect that she gave to Draco and allowed him his privacy and pride intact.

Luna could only see the empathy in the professor where so many others saw unyielding malignity. Today she walked the dungeons a near complete Ravenclaw uniform with her flaxen hair twisted in to a bun with what looked like large cutlery. Fingertips drug along the walls as she walked. It was instinct that had stopped her and then sound of voices. A pause. Ears tuned it. A conversation that wasn't meant to be heard by anyone else, but they could not have anticipated a stray student. It was thirty minutes before any sane staff or student should have been awake. She hadn't wanted to stop, she wanted to turn and leave. It was after all was not her place to be eavesdropping. Hearing her name forced her to take pause.

"You have to believe it wasn't him out there at the Lovegoods. "She pressed herself to the wall and held her breath. Were they talking about Draco? "Please, you have to believe me. " the voice was feminine and desperate. Luna hadn't considered what he'd risked for her that night.

"We are no closer to finding it then we were a month ago. Our hope was stolen that night and if we find that your "

"You won't. I swear it. I ..." the female voice was weak.

"Draco," a male voice swept in and it so reassuring. "He will find out. The girl is a classmate. Draco can" the voice was cut off.

"From what I've seen Draco can't even handle the simplest of tasks. " a third unknown voice.

"You think it is easy? " a fist on a table. "Believe me when I say Draco can do this. He is best option. "The male voice was so possessive and quick to promise. Then there was a pause. She heard only set of foot steps and the door opened just a silver. There was Professor Snape in long robes and strict stoicism on his face. As if she were not even standing there. He stood in the door baring any view of the room and of her. He looked at her and she backed away. She turned and walked away as quickly as she could and soon broke in to a jog. She had to find Draco. . . or was she supposed to run from him?

"Was someone there, Severus?"

"No,"


	5. Chapter 5

As the days passed he became both more scarce and frantic. He hadn't returned to the Room of Requirement either. This sparred Luna any possible confrontation with Crabb and Goyle, which some part of her appreciate. They only shared Transfiguration class and he was rarely there. When he was he arrived late and always the first to leave. To approach was to draw unnecessary attention. Luna though seemly unattached to the world around her, understood the consequences to unacceptable social contracts. The Slytherin Prince and the Ravencaw Oddity were not to acknowledge one another without the preconceived notion that one was a certain tax to pay. Just once she he decided that tax was worth paying. That she take what even burn and black lash would come of it. He was worth that gamble.

It was between classes when she made that choice. She's caught him on a winding steps that lead to divination. The body of students parted to to give her room as passed. Imagining that she must have forgotten something in the classroom. At this age most ignored her, but a few hung on their immaturity and she heard the snickering and felt them gesturing at her as she passed them. There wasn't anything too peculiar about her today, except the long and heavy necklace of sooringer antlers. An impossibly tiny creature that shed its decorative head gear in the fall. The antlers were often mistaken fro blacken twigs, they were good luck for girls that believed in such things. With all that was happening having belief in something good was a nice change.

Breathlessly she grabbed onto his shoulder.

"Draco," she between panting breath. He snapped around and his first reaction was surprise. Then he became aware of the crowd that had frozen and turned their eyes on him. They expected her to pay the tax. They expected him to extract a point of flesh.

"Don't touch me." he spat with a hard and unforgivable himself from her touch.

"Draco? I just wanted " there was apology in her words. He was searching for a way out but a crowd had gathered and she knew she had made a mistake. Draco's cruelty wasn't a choice anymore, not for boys like him.

"How dare you speak to me blood traitor." and he shoved her hard against the wall. The was a low oooo, no one stepped forward to intervene. Luna didn't fight him. She didn't draw her wand instead she braced for him. The boy had fist full of the wool collar of her school sweater and elbow that braced across her chest. When she opened her eyes she saw him with his face contorted with brutality, a red flush of palpable anger and confusion. That wand was drawn on her again. A long moment passed.

The firm steps of Professor McGonagall were unmistakable. Each step held such conviction and urgency.

"Malfoy you release that girl this instant." Her voice was somehow more dangerous than the wand she held out.

He pushed into her hard and she felt the stone dig and winced. She became the outlet of his rage and then she felt him learn on her harder.

"Draco," a ice edge to McGongall.

"Don't think you'll get away with this." seethed between bared teeth. She felt him push something into her hem of her skirt. A motion without suggestion and with clear intent.

"50 points from Slythern, detention Mr. Malfoy" she scoffed and he stepped back. She buckled and hestraightened his suit. "My office, now." Luna coughed and he stormed off. McGongall approached and touched her shoulder.

"Are you alright child?" The woman looked miffed. She also looked at her they way nearly all professors had with a certain emphatic pity.

"I am fine Professor. I think I would like to go down the great hall to see if there is any pudding left."

"Miss. Lovegood are you certain?" a cant of her head, an arch of her brow. "I"d like to you to see Madam Promphy."

"Professor, " a one sided smile. "It is okay," it was if the girl was now comforting the adult. She'd she gotten used that.

With silent disapproval the Professor let Luna go and she raced down the spiral stairs as quickly as she could. Grabbing the paper and holding it balled in her fist, safe. Students made room for her. Whispers followed her. She rushed all the ways back to them common room. No one stopped her or asked to speak to her. She'd traveled then the rumors had. She ran up the stairs to her dorm three steps at a time up and climbed her way to the top of her bed. Into a plush nest of pillows. She opened the paper. The paper that was flexible and worn as if Draco had obsessed over it, had written some time ago, and opened it again again. As if he were even considering if was worthly of the letters written on the page "Alchemy tower, 11:30"


	6. Chapter 6

For a long time she fixated on the small note. Nothing had changed about it except each time she opened it the creases grew ever more frail. The breathless emotion she felt when she opened it entrapped her to it. The girl that often found herself lost in the unbelievable, the hopeful, the secretive, the fictional, but had never experienced something so vast and undefined before. All of the ache and exhaustion had given way to a silent rapture.

When the dorm began to fill with female students she began to ready herself for bed. Placing the letter safely under her pillow. She undressed. Slipping out of her uniform and into a long, modest white cotton night dress. She removed a number of hand crafted jewelry and placed them in a small dragon bone dish on her end table, next to the stick wreath of withering flowers. As she laid stomach down on her bed she swiped a stack of letters that sat on her night stand. Keeping herself under the radar of other students while they readied for bed. By her sixth year Luna had mastered blending. The girls around her gossiped, teased and huffed among one another. She was thankfully noticed her. None of them aware of her small paper secret.

Now she browsed through the excess letters from her father. Xenophillius wrote everyday, and sometimes twice, so that he might comfort himself. Luna wrote just as frequently with the understanding that if she didn't he'd have less proof that his daughter was alive and well. To ever remind him she was still living and breathing. Sometimes she only wrote a line or two back, but that was enough. Neither of them wrote about how she go off the property that night. They didn't write it about it for very different reasons.

When lights went out she crawled to the top of her bed and pulled her blankets up, letters replaced on the night stand. Held tightly in her hand was that note. Restlessly she turned and wrapped herself in the thin linen. Staring out the gray darkness of the room. Luna waited until she could hear the soft breath sounds of her dorm mates slow and their bodies to settle. Then after a long while she slipped from her bed. Feet on the cold stone that caused goose flesh to spread and let go. Without regard for the cold she snuck from her dormitory. Luna slipped down the stairs with cautious steps, bare feet a light pitter patter on the floor. The common room was empty, the fire had turned to embers. The halls were near empty. Only ghosts prowled where she wandered.

He was already there when she arrived. In that dark tailored suit that added to his lean angular build. A beautiful silhouette. Around glittering instruments of gold and silver. Complex maps, bookshelves filled with sleeping pages. He knew she was there but they stood there without saying anything. Neither of them wanting to kill the sanctuary of this place with the burden of truth. The damning truth of who she was and what he was. How forbidden that was to share this space. Then he turned.

Seeing Luna standing in the gauze gown the shape of her body plain through the material but the sexuality of it lost in the darkness. Hair mussed as if she just been woken up. She turned shut the door and then there was the sound of the lock sliding into place.

"You're stupid," Draco said. There was no accusation in his voice. Luna crossed the room to stand beside him and he didn't ridicule her. The girl look at that elegant face, the glint of those pale blue eyes. What had started as a empathy for the Sytherin Price had developed into a undeniable magnetic attraction. Sacrifice and debt had drawn them together. Forged a trust in a time when that was too dangerous to speak of. In a time where they were outlawed from this friendship.

She turned her gaze to the slender window.

"They don't really teach about the stars in Astronomy," Luna was ready to shoulder his burden." They are so beautiful they demanded a mythology. Greif, lust, wrath. . . "

Draco was not moved. He would not take the bait. He interrupted her.

"Don't think just because I. . ." and he found the confession hard to grasp.

"I don't," she reassured him and caught his gaze once more. Cold that eked from the walls. Luna reached for his hand and this time Draco did not retreat. Before she reached him there was hard banging on the door. A hard rattle. They forgot their place and stared at the door. Terrified that their secret though never revealed had been exposed.

"Draco!" One voice but at least two bodies. "Let us in, comon." It was the rough English of Crabb.

"Let us innn," shadows under the door moved. "You've got her cornered, don'cha?" there was a sadistic glee.

Draco stepped back. He slid apart away from her. In that cold distant that had become his only comfort. That distant that Luna had threatened. He was liven by his purpose once more. His alliance had been called. He was trapped between them and her.

"You're stupid, " he repeated. He spoke with gritted teeth in a low hiss. "Do you know what they want me to do?" Those words were not a warning they were a clear threat. He began to pace with his hands in his hair .Punishing himself with a rhythmic tap of the heel of his palm to his temple. It did not ground him. The door still rattled and the boys goaded him on.

'Draco" a whisper,

He stopped and drew his wand.

"Where is it?" A demand. She knew what he was talking about.

"I can't tell you." Luna had her own alliances. Luna readied her wand. By the time Draco could react she was already in motion. She was casting a silent incantation. Instinctively Draco made an unnecessary step to the side. A flare of red gold sparks discharged from the ivy gort wand the spell flashed by him and rebounded off a silver plate on the wall. The plate cracked and fell. The spell rebounded knocked the girl off her feet with a short lterrifying scream.

As if on cue the door broke down and Crabb and Goyle appeared in the door. Draco didn't know what do. He looked frantic between her and his pack.

"What you do her?"Crabb laughed inching toward her nudging her lifeless arm with a prod of his boot. Luna laid unconscious and bleeding. Blood blossomed into the white purity of her gown. The spell had burned a hole through the fabric showed scotched skin below just below her ribs. That is where her spell had penetrated her. Draco didn't know what it was, but he knew she had cast it on herself.

"Shut up," Draco snapped.

"You didn't kill her. . . did you?" the goonies faces went slack. Crabbe nudged her harder and she whimpered lightly. Draco took a breath and then shoved Crabbe hard away from her.

"You're an idiot " he sneered. This anxiety he could not hide. A ginger cat trotted into the room looking to them rather disgruntled and offered a broken meow.

"We better get out of here" The goons were gone as quick as the they came and spoke in unison. They were cowards. Draco stood uncertain of what to do. Flitch's uneven gait was near. Draco acted quickly, impulsively, snatching up her wand. Another silent incantation that shot red sparks from her wand. As he ran from the room he dropped it in the door frame.

"I'll get you this time, fifthly urchins" the care taker grumbled chewing on his tongue. "Hang you in the dungeons, " a sniffle.

Swimming against consciousness and dream Luna woke to the sounds of Madam Pomfrey at her bedside.T he nurse shut off the light and shuffled away. Luna dropped back to dream.

Draco appeared at the infirmary. He stood among the beds. Shivering, broken, confused.


	7. Chapter 7

In the shadows, Draco stood partially veiled in the grey darkness. Trying to gather the courage to leave this place because there was so much of him that wanted to stay. As he entered the open floor space of the infirmary he found only one curtain was drawn. He approached and gathered the stiff cotton of the fabric, drawing back it back and revealing small space she occupied.

There laid Luna. Her figure outlined loosely under a pale mint green tightly woven blanket. A mess of long blond hair sprawled around her making borrowing her an ethereal expression. A slant of moonlight crept from floor to half way up the bed. Her gown had been changed to a sleeveless frock. The prince walked closer dropping the curtain and killing the moonlight. His wand at the ready, but there was no enemy here. As if he could try to muster the fury to punish her for what she had done, for making him choose between his alliance and his desires. For forcing her way into this sacred space. She rolled in the bed, and he knew he all of that was futile. Draco felt something break down in him. It was his conviction, the very last of his reserves. With a soft clatter his wand fell to the floor.

Luna woke slowly blinking the world into reality and saw him standing there in the dark. She pulled herself up shaking off the dreads of sleep. There was more distance between them than the visible space of just two feet, and it was left unsaid. So Luna reached towards him. A hand that hung in the air for a while before he took it and she guided him closer. Until he was crawling on to the bed along side of her. She laid and wrapped him around her. Draco only followed. Luna pulled his arm under hers and along her chest. She gazed out the window and listened to the internal sounds of the boy. The slow rhythm of his breath, the sound of rustling as shoes were pried off. Draco surrendered for the first time to her kindness. He laid with her without that furious denial. There was none left. She felt him tense and hard ridge of his nose as he burrowed into the crook of her shoulder. They laid like that for a long time. She felt the wetness of silent tears and then him relax as he fell away from the burdens of reality. Draco slept for the first time in weeks without dreams, without fits.


End file.
